A couple of weeks back somebody posted a thread with a link to that Blizzard blog post about custom maps, where Blizzard comes up with the crème de la crème of custom mapping and mentions Mafia and a legion of Nexus Wars clones. Some people defended Blizzard with the message of "it's only a PR blog post, don't take it seriously, the poster knows nothing about the actual situation". Everybody recalls what I'm talking about?
Good, 'cause I've only now found this blog post and part 2 of it. So to play a delayed devil's advocate: for all the 'PR posting' they do at Blizzard, they do seem to know a lot about the world of E-sports. They've heard about WhiteRa's special tactics, Huk's hallucination tactics vs IdrA, and even about friggin' eaglestream (of which I wouldn't be surprised if half the people here didn't know wtf that is about, that's how hardcore it is). What we got was Nexus Wars.
Now I'm not entirely sure where I am going with this (as it'll probably transform into a huge popularity system rage-discussion after which I'll simply close the thread), but hey, I did just want to throw it out there...
A formal apology would be nice. Including a suggested revamp on the pop system, a mention of all the maps that are actually good and recognition of Rodrigo's toilet video.
So your problem now is that Blizzard Esport-PR department is bigger than its Custom-Maps-PR department? I would even go so far to say that there is no Custom-Maps-PR department and I doubt there ever will be one unless Blizzard can make a siginifacnt profit off it (so wait for the Marketplace).
How many people watch SC2-Tournament-Streams? hundreds to thousands. How many people watch SC2-Editor-Streams? A dozen? How many people stream custom maps regularily? Not many I think. It all can grow if Blizzard lets it.
edit: you will never get any of your wishes. Except for the one with the pop sstem, but for that you'll have to wait until hots.
If you work on SC2, watch e-sport events and have a family, you don't have time to play many custom games I guess. ;D
Maybe you have to see it the Blizzard way to see things: easy to learn, hard to master and don't forget the bronze veterans.
So if something isn't intuitive right from start, it scares players of. Maybe a good map is easily accessible for everyone (easy to learn, simple controls, simple rules) and fun (the degree of fun can differ between individuals, so you have the haters like I hate these stupid massing maps).
You know its not necessarily the same person posting that custom map article is posting that esport article, neither of them had to know things so specific to the custom map scene, or for example their focus were set on esport from whatever boss above told them to.
You did see that patch 1.4 went live. . . right? Did you see how many changes we got?
They are just as aware of the custom mapping scene as they are of E-sports. The difference is that they require completely different approaches given the massive disparity between how people view eSports and Modding.
On topic:
devil u know is easy.. i can't help but smile with the devil u don't...
It is really weird how they cater so slowly for mapmakers, the only explanation i can fathom is that they literally only have 2 designers following / updating galaxy and its upload features...
Although i'm not really in any way "eye on the ball mapmaker", but didn't they address everything? :)
shouldn't someone make a celebration thread r something?
Well, there is tofu snafu, not to mention disconnects are up (? i think).. so i guess there's still that
Just wanted to give my "YEHHHH yahoo coool as fuck" etc 3 cent :^p
ps: i want custom race, got to get mapmakers biatch about it some.. maybe i'll get it by LoftheV
I'm not gonna throw myself into this one, but Esports != Custom Mapping, and most likely not the same guy who made the post. But still, you need to think about it from the perspective of getting the message across.
Nexus Wars was on top of the popularity and a lot of people know what map it is and a lot of people most likely enjoy that map a great deal. So for the sake of communicating to the players of the custom maps, it would not make sense to mention a lesser known but better map most of the readers have never heard of. (inb4 "there were better maps on the first page")
I don't want to re-start that old conversation so I'll jump out here.
You know why they don't take map makers more seriously, because no one has produced anything worth being taken seriously of - yes, there are a few unreleased projects that are at that level, and the closest that has came so far was Smashcraft and even then, it was still far from impressing Blizzard (Admittedly, Meph trolling Blizzard, Rodrigo style, even when in the right, is never a good thing. You want them to take us seriously? Then produce some amazing shit that wows everyone from PR to the top.
And, before someone brings up the Wc3 Bandwagon, there were only a few maps at a high level of quality, pretty much the same amount that we have in Sc2 now (if included prementioned unreleased projects). At this point in Wc3's history, Dota was just released and the map scene was as shit as it is now in Sc2.
You did see that patch 1.4 went live. . . right? Did you see how many
changes we got?
They are just as aware of the custom mapping scene as they are of
E-sports. The difference is that they require completely different
approaches given the massive disparity between how people view eSports
and Modding.
I really doubt they do it for us, they just do it for themselves and add it by the way.
Custom maps should get as much attention as eSports, or maybe even more, considering they intend to make direct profit with them, unlike with eSports, which give with tournaments only.
Their problem is they don't give a shit about anything. I haven't seen any mapper's suggestions paid attention to.
The goddamn community is dead, because the ship Blizz sold us sank as soon as the people aboard started rowing. We screamed for help, for some life jackets, and Blizz ignored us, leaving. When people started to drown, Blizz decided to give some "help", and threw us some extra paddles. They left again and didn't even give us time to facepalm properly.
1. I really doubt they do it for us, they just do it for themselves and add it by the way.
2. Custom maps should get as much attention as eSports, or maybe even more, considering they intend to make direct profit with them, unlike with eSports, which give with tournaments only.
3. Their problem is they don't give a shit about anything. I haven't seen any mapper's suggestions paid attention to.
4. The goddamn community is dead, because the ship Blizz sold us sank as soon as the people aboard started rowing. We screamed for help, for some life jackets, and Blizz ignored us, leaving. When people started to drown, Blizz decided to give some "help", and threw us some extra paddles. They left again and didn't even give us time to facepalm properly.
1. They do it for us. Believe me. They have more to gain with the combined amount of mappers producing content for their custom games list, than themselves just producing some high quality stuff here and there. Im also 100% certain they browse through our website(maybe not as intently) for feedback, and any other relevant data.
2. eSports is what helps to grow Sc2 and sustain the momentum into the next two expansions. Custom maps is just lulz for the casual market. It would be a complete waste of time to attempt to give it the same level of attention as esports.
Please, dont ever run for a business management position anywhere, You`ll bankrupt the company with stupid decisions.
3. What mappers suggestions?. Have you seen the latest patch?. Its amusing to think that people assumed the editor or even B.net 2 upon release would be PERFECT.
Blizzard has shown that they are committed to improving the editor, system, and everything slowly in due time. Its evolving. Simply put. Its better than nothing and what most other companies offer with their editors. Dont like?. Leave.
4. Nah. The community(some part of it) is a bunch of whiny b1tches. Kids who had an easy time with simplistic editors like Wc3 and Starcraft 1(lol) and then come complain about the pop system and how complex and tedious the Sc2 editor is. Not knowing this is simply next generation design bar any automation or added simplicity. Its like game devs programming on the cell infrastructure of the PS3(Extremely difficult). Much more complex than the PS2 and even Xbox 360, but in cases its shown that the PS3 can churn out more power and quality than the Xbox360.
Fact is, the editor is not meant for most people(Deal with it). Its a slightly more complex tool but equally rewarding in its power.
As for the custom mapping scene. Im pretty damn sure the last remark made "And of course Nexus wars" was sarcasm on the part of Blizzard, and you people fail to realize that.
Labeling this or that `good` is also perception and opinion. Ive never played mafia and from its description , I doubt its really something I`d enjoy. Thats just my opinion. Point is , it was more logical for Blizzard to mention/reference popular maps(To its direct audience) than base it randomly about what we think is good(which is all varied and dependent on personal taste).
The main problem aint the editor. Its the bnet and every aspect of it...everything is done like shit pretty much.
As for the editor. You say complexity is required for more power. Could someone explain why do we need actors and models as different tabs as atleast I have ALWAYS needed actor when im playing with models...thus they could be just their own thing. I really liked the way wc3 handled models. You just take it and its good to go (and you could still play around with it).
Site operations, rockers, could be as their own gategory and even they seem to have so many fields which I have tried of using but seem to have no purpose...dunno whats up with that...I guess they just want to have so freakin many options even though they dont do anything.
same goes for sounds and stuff....I think they could be combined with actors...and just make all those fields that nobody uses for 90% of the time hidden as normal and open when wanted....
No good maps have been produced because of low support, or more like opposition from Blizzard.
When they do support the mapmakers, it won't be because "We want to see fun maps made with our game," they will always be thinking "How can we use the mapmaking community to get us more money?" Since the overwhelming popularity of World of Warcraft, I believe they have learned that high-quality work is no longer necessarily needed to make money. Thus they adopted a more capitalistic perspective, similar to that of McDonald's or Wal-mart.
The editor is more powerful than previous ones, true, but it's also obscenely user-unfriendly and probably one of the least intuitive programs I've ever used. (At least the data editor portion of it.) Complexity does not always equal better, sometimes it just means the workflow becomes unnecessarily longer.
You always see people always whining about these things, and I know it gets old. But people are, and have been, whining for a reason. Starcraft 2's custom map scene could've been so much more, and it's sad to see how little support it has gotten from Blizzard.
Perhaps Blizzard will attempt to salvage it, and if they do make a turn-about, then I might go back to mapping. But I don't think I'll be holding my breath.
It is not retarded logic, I had nothing to say about the previous comments so I instead instilled another train of thought into the conversation, because I had already agreeded with the posts above me.
To summerise my point; Blizzard will pay more attention when the quality of custom maps grow and we get their attention, no offense to anyone here, but we do have the reputation of a bunch of crying whinging little girls who like to troll Blizzard, and yes you can mainly thank Rodrigo and Mephs for that (I love you guys <3, but you did piss Blizzard off).
At the same time, we know very well that we are playing by Blizzard's rules in their court, using their tennis balls and rackets. If they decide they want to serve cannon balls which blow up our racket and we have to serve tennis balls made out of cotton candy, that is what we have to do. Blizzard takes forever and a day to do anything, which is why I never bitched or complained about things lacking from the editor, as I knew the guys who were doing the work are simply doing their jobs, and yes, even though being a small amount, do indeed do their best to add stuff in that we can use. There is no doubt that Blizzard Dota is the main reason we are getting the majority of stuff, so you should be thankful to the little blond hair kid that is in charge of it, cause when he thinks up something he wants we all benefit.
I really hope that for Blizzcon 2012 I can sit up there on the stage for a community custom map panel and really give you all a piece of my mind about all this moaning, complaining and blaming Blizzard for your failings as a map maker.
The Sc2 map editor is fucken powerful, but at the same time because we bitched for 8 friggin years in Wc3 saying "THE EDITORZ IS NOT POWERFUL ENOUGHS WE NEED MOAR CONTROL!!!" and then they gave it to us, so now we can control and change nearly everything - the other group of people (Aka nooblets) cried "OH NOES THE SC2 EDITOR IS TOO COMPLEX, MY BRAIN ISNT AT THAT HIGH ENOUGH LEVEL OF FUNCTIONING, NERF PLZZZZZ". Its like omfg, where are you going to draw the line. Yes, you cannot make Dota in a day now, look at Tofu, that is a years worth of work now, and yes we took alot of breaks cause I kept burning myself out, but it shows the amount of dedication for itself. If I was to do something similar in the Wc3 engine, we could do it in a week, if that, but because we have that level of control over our project, and we want to polish every minute detail, it takes a long long time. The logic behind the engine was written in about 4 weeks, the other 11 months is just polishing, and polishing and more polishing.
If you think this is bad then go write a game of similar quality from scratch in C + + ... every little function that you take for granted in Sc2 has to be written.
I have very little doubt that we will either see an official "Wizard" or a third party one that will greatly simplify the Data editor, and speed up creating things, it is just a matter of time. They gave us their tools for creating the game, they are 30-40 year old guys who are extremely friggin smart, and the tools show that. But at the same time they dumbed things down a shitload so the average teenager could make sense of it. If an 11 year old kid cannot understand the sc2 editor then they should go back to Minecraft, it was not designed as a kids toy, it was designed as a new platform for professional map makers who wanted to try and actually make some money out of their projects.
When I saw the post from Blizzard that said "Even Dota wouldn't be allowed in the map market place" I was like WTF ... but now, after working my ass off on Tofu, I understand what they meant. Dota in Sc2 = Sotis. A basic map with heroes that still uses standard dialogs (leaderboards in Wc3), that looks exactly the same and might import a custom sound or two. Fuck no, I would not pay for that shit in the Marketplace.
On the other hand, Tofu (And I don't want to mention Tofu so forgive me it is the only example I have), which has complete custom UI, which looks and feels nothing like Sc2 (except for a few similar graphics, aka, storm effects, terrain etc), which reskins the majority of models, which uses no standard button art - if someone else made it, I would pay for that, because then you are moving beyond the realms of simple map making and into actually defining your own game using Sc2 as an engine and nothing more. Smashcraft is the closest thing we have to a Marketplace quality map, but at the same time I would not pay for it because I simply do not like it as a game, I wouldn't play it because it requires perfect timing which is impossible for me in AU playing on NA.
I bet you, you will see Blizzard promoting and supporting custom maps a shitload more when the quality of said maps increases to something they can actually show off and be proud of, if at the moment the best maps we have is Nexus Wars and Sotis, then we should all be killing each other as we disgraced our ancestors.
No good maps have been produced because of low support, or more like opposition from Blizzard.
Patch 1.3 broke Tofu just before it was meant to be released in Beta. Dryeyece and I have never striked because Blizzard f'ed us over in that patch, nor did we ever say "Fuck it, we're giving up" because of numerous other issues that required weeks of figuring out how to create work arounds. Tofu has so many work arounds in it, it isn't funny, and when a new patch comes along we are always forced to redo shit because "Blizzard patched our work around" or "Blizzard finally fixed it so we don't need to work around it anymore". And yet Tofu is still a friggin good map even with low support, but why should they give anyone "extra support" like they gave to Icefrog when no one has proved themselves yet. Instead of crying and bitching - have you noticed in the last six months since 1.3 Dryeyece and I have said nearly nothing about Tofu, because we have been working our asses off trying to finish it. Less time bitching = more time working, more time working = faster it will be finished. And I personally hate it, I hate it that I let you guys down, I hate it that at the height of the build up of popularity that 1.3 came out and did all this shit, but you know what, it happened for a reason - it has now given us the opportunity to take our time and really polishing off something that will hopefully amaze the majority of people on battle net.
Blizzard does not have the resources to cater to every noob crying over something in the editor. There is a difference from someone at say Prozaic's/Dryeyece's level of data knowledge, or my level of scripting knowledge, asking for something "important" to be fixed, rather than noobs crying about 101 things that don't need fixing cause they didn't try for more than 2 seconds to figure it out. But alas, we are not in contact with Blizzard, so we just keep our heads down and keep working hard trying to finish our project as soon as possible. If one day we do get in contact with Blizzard, by then it will be too late for Tofu because it will already be finished, but we will still try and get things changed for you guys, to help you guys succeed, cause we don't want to be up there in terms of quality alone.
There has to be that filter there, and whilst Sixen is no doubt a messenger boy for Blizzard, he does not have the technical knowledge of map making, he cannot look at a list of requested changes and understand which things are important and which things can be done with a little bit of elbow grease, he can only go on by what he is told by the greater community, and no offense, the greater community is pretty friggin lazy when it comes to trying to figure things out.
Does anyone else think dogmai sounds more like blizzard fanboy than actually bringing up good arguments?
Sure if someone would make a map like DOTA in wc3, if it would reach similar popularity sure they would throw fixes for sc2 just for that map, like they patched wc3 just to fix DOTA bugs. Other than that...the map quality doesnt matter to blizzard, its all about the money they can gain from it.
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A couple of weeks back somebody posted a thread with a link to that Blizzard blog post about custom maps, where Blizzard comes up with the crème de la crème of custom mapping and mentions Mafia and a legion of Nexus Wars clones. Some people defended Blizzard with the message of "it's only a PR blog post, don't take it seriously, the poster knows nothing about the actual situation". Everybody recalls what I'm talking about?
Good, 'cause I've only now found this blog post and part 2 of it. So to play a delayed devil's advocate: for all the 'PR posting' they do at Blizzard, they do seem to know a lot about the world of E-sports. They've heard about WhiteRa's special tactics, Huk's hallucination tactics vs IdrA, and even about friggin' eaglestream (of which I wouldn't be surprised if half the people here didn't know wtf that is about, that's how hardcore it is). What we got was Nexus Wars.
Now I'm not entirely sure where I am going with this (as it'll probably transform into a huge popularity system rage-discussion after which I'll simply close the thread), but hey, I did just want to throw it out there...
What is it that you want them to do?
A formal apology would be nice. Including a suggested revamp on the pop system, a mention of all the maps that are actually good and recognition of Rodrigo's toilet video.
Hi, I am one of the defendants.
So your problem now is that Blizzard Esport-PR department is bigger than its Custom-Maps-PR department? I would even go so far to say that there is no Custom-Maps-PR department and I doubt there ever will be one unless Blizzard can make a siginifacnt profit off it (so wait for the Marketplace).
How many people watch SC2-Tournament-Streams? hundreds to thousands. How many people watch SC2-Editor-Streams? A dozen? How many people stream custom maps regularily? Not many I think. It all can grow if Blizzard lets it.
edit: you will never get any of your wishes. Except for the one with the pop sstem, but for that you'll have to wait until hots.
If you work on SC2, watch e-sport events and have a family, you don't have time to play many custom games I guess. ;D
Maybe you have to see it the Blizzard way to see things: easy to learn, hard to master and don't forget the bronze veterans.
So if something isn't intuitive right from start, it scares players of. Maybe a good map is easily accessible for everyone (easy to learn, simple controls, simple rules) and fun (the degree of fun can differ between individuals, so you have the haters like I hate these stupid massing maps).
You know its not necessarily the same person posting that custom map article is posting that esport article, neither of them had to know things so specific to the custom map scene, or for example their focus were set on esport from whatever boss above told them to.
So, meh!
You did see that patch 1.4 went live. . . right? Did you see how many changes we got?
They are just as aware of the custom mapping scene as they are of E-sports. The difference is that they require completely different approaches given the massive disparity between how people view eSports and Modding.
Real nice picture pm.. it is artsy like u
On topic:
devil u know is easy.. i can't help but smile with the devil u don't...
It is really weird how they cater so slowly for mapmakers, the only explanation i can fathom is that they literally only have 2 designers following / updating galaxy and its upload features...
Although i'm not really in any way "eye on the ball mapmaker", but didn't they address everything? :)
shouldn't someone make a celebration thread r something?
Well, there is tofu snafu, not to mention disconnects are up (? i think).. so i guess there's still that
Just wanted to give my "YEHHHH yahoo coool as fuck" etc 3 cent :^p
ps: i want custom race, got to get mapmakers biatch about it some.. maybe i'll get it by LoftheV
I'm not gonna throw myself into this one, but Esports != Custom Mapping, and most likely not the same guy who made the post. But still, you need to think about it from the perspective of getting the message across.
Nexus Wars was on top of the popularity and a lot of people know what map it is and a lot of people most likely enjoy that map a great deal. So for the sake of communicating to the players of the custom maps, it would not make sense to mention a lesser known but better map most of the readers have never heard of. (inb4 "there were better maps on the first page")
I don't want to re-start that old conversation so I'll jump out here.
You know why they don't take map makers more seriously, because no one has produced anything worth being taken seriously of - yes, there are a few unreleased projects that are at that level, and the closest that has came so far was Smashcraft and even then, it was still far from impressing Blizzard (Admittedly, Meph trolling Blizzard, Rodrigo style, even when in the right, is never a good thing. You want them to take us seriously? Then produce some amazing shit that wows everyone from PR to the top.
And, before someone brings up the Wc3 Bandwagon, there were only a few maps at a high level of quality, pretty much the same amount that we have in Sc2 now (if included prementioned unreleased projects). At this point in Wc3's history, Dota was just released and the map scene was as shit as it is now in Sc2.
@DogmaiSEA: Go
Well thats just retarded logic.
you just dont get it...
I really doubt they do it for us, they just do it for themselves and add it by the way.
Custom maps should get as much attention as eSports, or maybe even more, considering they intend to make direct profit with them, unlike with eSports, which give with tournaments only.
Their problem is they don't give a shit about anything. I haven't seen any mapper's suggestions paid attention to.
The goddamn community is dead, because the ship Blizz sold us sank as soon as the people aboard started rowing. We screamed for help, for some life jackets, and Blizz ignored us, leaving. When people started to drown, Blizz decided to give some "help", and threw us some extra paddles. They left again and didn't even give us time to facepalm properly.
@Lonami: Go
I don't quite agree with the whole thing, but my god is that a brilliant analogy.
1. They do it for us. Believe me. They have more to gain with the combined amount of mappers producing content for their custom games list, than themselves just producing some high quality stuff here and there. Im also 100% certain they browse through our website(maybe not as intently) for feedback, and any other relevant data.
2. eSports is what helps to grow Sc2 and sustain the momentum into the next two expansions. Custom maps is just lulz for the casual market. It would be a complete waste of time to attempt to give it the same level of attention as esports.
Please, dont ever run for a business management position anywhere, You`ll bankrupt the company with stupid decisions.
3. What mappers suggestions?. Have you seen the latest patch?. Its amusing to think that people assumed the editor or even B.net 2 upon release would be PERFECT.
Blizzard has shown that they are committed to improving the editor, system, and everything slowly in due time. Its evolving. Simply put. Its better than nothing and what most other companies offer with their editors. Dont like?. Leave.
4. Nah. The community(some part of it) is a bunch of whiny b1tches. Kids who had an easy time with simplistic editors like Wc3 and Starcraft 1(lol) and then come complain about the pop system and how complex and tedious the Sc2 editor is. Not knowing this is simply next generation design bar any automation or added simplicity. Its like game devs programming on the cell infrastructure of the PS3(Extremely difficult). Much more complex than the PS2 and even Xbox 360, but in cases its shown that the PS3 can churn out more power and quality than the Xbox360.
Fact is, the editor is not meant for most people(Deal with it). Its a slightly more complex tool but equally rewarding in its power.
As for the custom mapping scene. Im pretty damn sure the last remark made "And of course Nexus wars" was sarcasm on the part of Blizzard, and you people fail to realize that.
Labeling this or that `good` is also perception and opinion. Ive never played mafia and from its description , I doubt its really something I`d enjoy. Thats just my opinion. Point is , it was more logical for Blizzard to mention/reference popular maps(To its direct audience) than base it randomly about what we think is good(which is all varied and dependent on personal taste).
@EternalWraith: Go
The main problem aint the editor. Its the bnet and every aspect of it...everything is done like shit pretty much.
As for the editor. You say complexity is required for more power. Could someone explain why do we need actors and models as different tabs as atleast I have ALWAYS needed actor when im playing with models...thus they could be just their own thing. I really liked the way wc3 handled models. You just take it and its good to go (and you could still play around with it).
Site operations, rockers, could be as their own gategory and even they seem to have so many fields which I have tried of using but seem to have no purpose...dunno whats up with that...I guess they just want to have so freakin many options even though they dont do anything.
same goes for sounds and stuff....I think they could be combined with actors...and just make all those fields that nobody uses for 90% of the time hidden as normal and open when wanted....
its probly just me though...
No good maps have been produced because of low support, or more like opposition from Blizzard. When they do support the mapmakers, it won't be because "We want to see fun maps made with our game," they will always be thinking "How can we use the mapmaking community to get us more money?" Since the overwhelming popularity of World of Warcraft, I believe they have learned that high-quality work is no longer necessarily needed to make money. Thus they adopted a more capitalistic perspective, similar to that of McDonald's or Wal-mart.
The editor is more powerful than previous ones, true, but it's also obscenely user-unfriendly and probably one of the least intuitive programs I've ever used. (At least the data editor portion of it.) Complexity does not always equal better, sometimes it just means the workflow becomes unnecessarily longer.
You always see people always whining about these things, and I know it gets old. But people are, and have been, whining for a reason. Starcraft 2's custom map scene could've been so much more, and it's sad to see how little support it has gotten from Blizzard. Perhaps Blizzard will attempt to salvage it, and if they do make a turn-about, then I might go back to mapping. But I don't think I'll be holding my breath.
It is not retarded logic, I had nothing to say about the previous comments so I instead instilled another train of thought into the conversation, because I had already agreeded with the posts above me.
To summerise my point; Blizzard will pay more attention when the quality of custom maps grow and we get their attention, no offense to anyone here, but we do have the reputation of a bunch of crying whinging little girls who like to troll Blizzard, and yes you can mainly thank Rodrigo and Mephs for that (I love you guys <3, but you did piss Blizzard off).
At the same time, we know very well that we are playing by Blizzard's rules in their court, using their tennis balls and rackets. If they decide they want to serve cannon balls which blow up our racket and we have to serve tennis balls made out of cotton candy, that is what we have to do. Blizzard takes forever and a day to do anything, which is why I never bitched or complained about things lacking from the editor, as I knew the guys who were doing the work are simply doing their jobs, and yes, even though being a small amount, do indeed do their best to add stuff in that we can use. There is no doubt that Blizzard Dota is the main reason we are getting the majority of stuff, so you should be thankful to the little blond hair kid that is in charge of it, cause when he thinks up something he wants we all benefit.
I really hope that for Blizzcon 2012 I can sit up there on the stage for a community custom map panel and really give you all a piece of my mind about all this moaning, complaining and blaming Blizzard for your failings as a map maker.
The Sc2 map editor is fucken powerful, but at the same time because we bitched for 8 friggin years in Wc3 saying "THE EDITORZ IS NOT POWERFUL ENOUGHS WE NEED MOAR CONTROL!!!" and then they gave it to us, so now we can control and change nearly everything - the other group of people (Aka nooblets) cried "OH NOES THE SC2 EDITOR IS TOO COMPLEX, MY BRAIN ISNT AT THAT HIGH ENOUGH LEVEL OF FUNCTIONING, NERF PLZZZZZ". Its like omfg, where are you going to draw the line. Yes, you cannot make Dota in a day now, look at Tofu, that is a years worth of work now, and yes we took alot of breaks cause I kept burning myself out, but it shows the amount of dedication for itself. If I was to do something similar in the Wc3 engine, we could do it in a week, if that, but because we have that level of control over our project, and we want to polish every minute detail, it takes a long long time. The logic behind the engine was written in about 4 weeks, the other 11 months is just polishing, and polishing and more polishing.
If you think this is bad then go write a game of similar quality from scratch in C + + ... every little function that you take for granted in Sc2 has to be written.
I have very little doubt that we will either see an official "Wizard" or a third party one that will greatly simplify the Data editor, and speed up creating things, it is just a matter of time. They gave us their tools for creating the game, they are 30-40 year old guys who are extremely friggin smart, and the tools show that. But at the same time they dumbed things down a shitload so the average teenager could make sense of it. If an 11 year old kid cannot understand the sc2 editor then they should go back to Minecraft, it was not designed as a kids toy, it was designed as a new platform for professional map makers who wanted to try and actually make some money out of their projects.
When I saw the post from Blizzard that said "Even Dota wouldn't be allowed in the map market place" I was like WTF ... but now, after working my ass off on Tofu, I understand what they meant. Dota in Sc2 = Sotis. A basic map with heroes that still uses standard dialogs (leaderboards in Wc3), that looks exactly the same and might import a custom sound or two. Fuck no, I would not pay for that shit in the Marketplace.
On the other hand, Tofu (And I don't want to mention Tofu so forgive me it is the only example I have), which has complete custom UI, which looks and feels nothing like Sc2 (except for a few similar graphics, aka, storm effects, terrain etc), which reskins the majority of models, which uses no standard button art - if someone else made it, I would pay for that, because then you are moving beyond the realms of simple map making and into actually defining your own game using Sc2 as an engine and nothing more. Smashcraft is the closest thing we have to a Marketplace quality map, but at the same time I would not pay for it because I simply do not like it as a game, I wouldn't play it because it requires perfect timing which is impossible for me in AU playing on NA.
I bet you, you will see Blizzard promoting and supporting custom maps a shitload more when the quality of said maps increases to something they can actually show off and be proud of, if at the moment the best maps we have is Nexus Wars and Sotis, then we should all be killing each other as we disgraced our ancestors.
Patch 1.3 broke Tofu just before it was meant to be released in Beta. Dryeyece and I have never striked because Blizzard f'ed us over in that patch, nor did we ever say "Fuck it, we're giving up" because of numerous other issues that required weeks of figuring out how to create work arounds. Tofu has so many work arounds in it, it isn't funny, and when a new patch comes along we are always forced to redo shit because "Blizzard patched our work around" or "Blizzard finally fixed it so we don't need to work around it anymore". And yet Tofu is still a friggin good map even with low support, but why should they give anyone "extra support" like they gave to Icefrog when no one has proved themselves yet. Instead of crying and bitching - have you noticed in the last six months since 1.3 Dryeyece and I have said nearly nothing about Tofu, because we have been working our asses off trying to finish it. Less time bitching = more time working, more time working = faster it will be finished. And I personally hate it, I hate it that I let you guys down, I hate it that at the height of the build up of popularity that 1.3 came out and did all this shit, but you know what, it happened for a reason - it has now given us the opportunity to take our time and really polishing off something that will hopefully amaze the majority of people on battle net.
Blizzard does not have the resources to cater to every noob crying over something in the editor. There is a difference from someone at say Prozaic's/Dryeyece's level of data knowledge, or my level of scripting knowledge, asking for something "important" to be fixed, rather than noobs crying about 101 things that don't need fixing cause they didn't try for more than 2 seconds to figure it out. But alas, we are not in contact with Blizzard, so we just keep our heads down and keep working hard trying to finish our project as soon as possible. If one day we do get in contact with Blizzard, by then it will be too late for Tofu because it will already be finished, but we will still try and get things changed for you guys, to help you guys succeed, cause we don't want to be up there in terms of quality alone.
There has to be that filter there, and whilst Sixen is no doubt a messenger boy for Blizzard, he does not have the technical knowledge of map making, he cannot look at a list of requested changes and understand which things are important and which things can be done with a little bit of elbow grease, he can only go on by what he is told by the greater community, and no offense, the greater community is pretty friggin lazy when it comes to trying to figure things out.
Does anyone else think dogmai sounds more like blizzard fanboy than actually bringing up good arguments?
Sure if someone would make a map like DOTA in wc3, if it would reach similar popularity sure they would throw fixes for sc2 just for that map, like they patched wc3 just to fix DOTA bugs. Other than that...the map quality doesnt matter to blizzard, its all about the money they can gain from it.